Agata Bogacka at Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art

Equality Lack, Warsaw, Poland

Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art invites you to Agata Bogacka's exhibition Equality Lack. This is another exhibition in a series presenting the work of artists whose artworks are included in the collection of the U–jazdowski.

Agata Bogacka is a painter, but she also works in photography, sculpture, and drawing. From 1996 to 2001, she studied at the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, where she earned her diploma with an annex in painting.

Equality Lack presents a selection of paintings from recent years, including works created specifically for this exhibition.

Since 2016, Bogacka has employed the language of abstraction in her painting. Her works are characterized by a distinct tension between form, surface, and gesture, where gradients – smooth tonal transitions – play a decisive role. The painting technique she has developed, or rather her system of actions performed on the surface of the canvas, is central to the meaning of her work and the interpretation of its content.

Analyzing the way Bogacka constructs her canvases reveals their semantic potential and draws attention to the pressing issues she addresses through abstraction: political events, social critique, emancipation, or feminist concerns. The “lack of equality” referenced in the title of the exhibition is one of the key themes recurring in her recent work, which remains acutely relevant and affects many communities. The gradient she employs suggests both the blurring and the drawing of boundaries – evoking, on a symbolic level, conciliatory or oppressive actions within complex interpersonal, political, and social relationships. Bogacka’s abstract compositions, subtle or emphatic, are infused with genuine emotion, suggested by the titles of her series, such as Relationship, Disagreement, Inequality, Declarations, Dependency, Divisions, Equality Dream.

For Bogacka, painting is a living, ongoing process, and each canvas represents its fragment. Regardless of any initial assumptions, external forces – ranging from daily experience to global events – also influence the final appearance of her works.

A crucial element in both her technique and her philosophy is the phenomenon of pentimento, i.e. painting over the visible traces of earlier decisions or alterations made by the artist. Bogacka associates pentimento with her broader understanding of painting as a process, which manifests itself through its own evolution and inner logic – she deliberately incorporates remnants of previous layers, shapes, or gestures into the finished composition.

Agata Bogacka, Equality Lack, installation view, Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland, 2025. © Agata Bogacka. Courtesy the artist and Gunia Nowik Gallery. Photo by Bartosz Górka.